Mumbai: These Aarey trees could breathe free

Rocks cover the soil around the trees on the premises of the VIP guest house, in Aarey Milk Colony. Pic/Anurag Ahire

The executive engineer from the PWD would soon visit the VIP guest house in Aarey Milk Colony after mid-day highlighted the dumping of huge stones on the soil around trees on the premises, said an environmentalist. Sources said the official could take corrective measures.

Environmentalist Zoru Bhathena had first raised concern about the work wherein stones were dumped all over the bases of nearly 10 trees, which could end up suffocating their roots and eventually killing them. The executive engineer from the Public Works Department (PWD) is overseeing the repair work on the premises of the guest house, said sources from the office of Aarey Milk Colony's CEO.

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"An engineer from PWD, who is looking after the Aarey VIP guest house work, called me on Wednesday and informed me that a gabion wall is being erected to avoid soil erosion on slope. I said the stones dumped on the ground are too huge to be a gabion wall," Bhathena told mid-day.

"Moreover, permission is needed to construct a gabion wall in a forest. In the Powai lake matter, the high court had said that the gabion wall amounts to construction, which is illegal [in forests, lakes, etc]." "I told the engineer that the VIP guest house is unmatched in natural beauty anywhere in Mumbai and that we expect PWD to enhance the natural beauty, not destroy it," he added.

mid-day reported on the matter on Tuesday. Bhathena had submitted complaints to several authorities concerned. The guest house is located inside Aarey forest, which is designated as a green zone in the Development Plan 2034, and is a part of the Eco-Sensitive Zone of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Among the past visitors to the guest house are a former prime minister of India and the late queen of England.